richard_s.

October 4, 2007

I'd never heard about this posilinear profile, it works like a

charm fixing a lot of earlier mistakes too!

It is a pity, that Minolta has not a better manual, description of the

workflow. Minolta tried to make it “idiot-proof”,

as a result you will not be informed of the true capabilities of this

scanner, but other brands are not better in this regard.

October 3, 2007

But to settle it for

all, is plain old 16 bit good enough?

Definitely, 16bit is as good as possible. Most DSLR use only 12 bit to read out the CCD, which means significant less dynamic range than the Dimage 5400.

The Dimage 5400 is excellent for the scanning of difficult, dense slides with deep blacks, like Velvia or Kodachrome.

September 29, 2007

Kannan,

16bit linear files of the Dimage 5400 are raw data without balanced

white-point. Simply applying a gamma correction of 2.2 will introduce

severe and difficult to remove colour casts.

I recommend to use a appropriate colour profile for colour conversion:

1. Assign, embed a fitting colour profile to the untagged

16bit linear scan, Minolta supplies the profile MLTF5400p.icc

“Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 (Posi Linear)”. Do

not use the “Convert to” option.

You image will now look very different on the monitor, but the data of

your image has not changed! The image editing program just interprets

it in different way.

Your image might look much better, but is still not internal

white-balanced. So it is better to convert it to a white-point balanced

colour space, before making any large colour or contrast adjustments.

2. I recommend to convert it to a wide gamut colour-space, like

“Ekta Space PS 5, J. Holmes.icm”, to preserve the

full range of colours.

3. When finished, you might convert it to a colour-space suitable for

your output device like “SRGB” for web-display.

I did just that with your sample image. Of course colour-space

conversion on 8bit JPEG files delivers not the best result.

You might notice, he Minolta supplied generic colour profile

MLTF5400p.icc “Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 (Posi

Linear)” introduces a slight magenta cast.

Therefore, I have profiled my scanner for several sorts of slide film,

with better results (I hope so). I used my “Velvia

50” profile on your image without a magenta colour cast. <div></div>

November 6, 2006

Look <a

href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00FSYV">here</a>

November 1, 2006

<a href="http://www.helmutnewton.com/">Helmut Newton

Foundation</a>

October 19, 2006

Skip, if your car stops working and gets a new engine, are then all

cars (same model) defective?

Olympus repaired OM-4 with OM-4Ti circuits because OM-4 circuits were

no longer available.

I have an working OM-4 with original circuit (there was only

one version), still works as advertised. There is nothing indicating an

systematic flaw in the OM-4 circuit.

Paul, the design flaw, the 'flash-ready' light draining the

camera battery, was a problem of the first samples

of the OM-2SP. It was solved by rerouting the power source of

the flash-ready LED. Affected early models could (still can) be fixed

by competent camera technicians.

October 16, 2006

According to Huber a set of fresh batteries should theoretical last for

400 films!

In practice, long exposure times, self timer, finder illumination draws

a lot of current.

My experience was that a set of fresh batteries was good

enough for dozens of films, shoot in a time span of 1-2 month

Like all modern cameras, the OM-4 has no power off switch,

it´s in permanent stand-by mode. Stand-by mode in the OM-4

will drain a set of fresh batteries in 6 month, without taking single

pictures. An OM-4Ti has less stand-by mode consumption, but in normal

operation there is no difference in battery life.

With Olympus OM cameras only use name brand quality silver-oxide

batteries, SR44, V76, 357 and equivalent. Cells from Varta, Renata, and

Duracell are know to be good.

Never ever use 3V lithium button cells, or cheap no-name silver-oxide

cell from China; your OM will be very unreliable with those cells. I

had cheap Chinese made no-name silver-oxide cells were 2/3 of them

started to leak while still in the package.

Don´t use alkaline button cells LR44, they will not last.

Cells are cheap but this is none the less a very uneconomical solution.

If your OM acts funny, show wrong exposure meter reading, gives false

exposure, first replace the battery pair with know good ones, then

check if the problem persists.

October 13, 2006

Colour negative film has an incredible high dynamic range, large exposure latitude out of the box.

For improved colour quality in shadows and highlight, bracketing with 4 stop difference might be OK.

BTW better bracket slide film with only a 2-3 stop difference, otherwise you might get no usable result.

October 12, 2006

Magnus, stop your imputations!

Are you implying that the above groups of people should stay

put where YOU think they belong, i.e. outside of Europe or Germany? If

so, I think you are a Leica user for reasons other than its

build/manufacturing quality...

Are you logical challenged?

Are you denying that the origin of the Jews is in the Middle East and

that of the Gypsies is India?

I´m not aware that Jews or Gypsies were kidnapped to come to

Europe.

So why should Jews or Gypsies come to Europe or Germany if they have

"problems with Europeans" (the original poster used the racist slur "master

races").

Nuff said.

Ahh, Magnus don´t drink too much and

don´t beat your wife and children so hard.

October 11, 2006

Vic, the original poster asked for places to visit (and probably to

photograph) while in Berlin.

<ol>

<li>The "Sun" is a

British Newspaper (know for its xenophobia and chauvinism) published in

London, not a German one; nothing to

photograph here.</li>

<li>Croatia is a independent nation, Berlin is the capitol of

Germany not Croatia. So nothing to photograph here either</li>

<li>There is no "holocaust museum" in

Berlin, but in Washington. Wrong side of the Atlantic.</li>

</ol>

My impression is, you tried to place some cheap

shoots

against Germany and had no interest in helping the original poster.

"18th/19th century European pseudo-Roman uber structures to

celebrate the master races of Western Civilization"

<ol>

<li>There are no "pseudo-Roman uber structures", what

you are probably referring to is called Classicism. Classicism tries to

explore the virtues of classical Greek civilization.</li>

<li>There are not many classicist buildings or museums in

Berlin (visit Gendarmenmarkt and the French Dome).</li>

<li>The classicist styled museums celebrate " master

races of Western Civilization" like the Sumerians or

Babylonians.</li>

</ol>

I recommend the visit of the museum island. Not only are museums of

great interest, but architecture allows for great sights (and

photography) Helmut Newton museum is near.

Vic, when you are playing the race card, you should at least know what

you are talking about; I didn´t know that "Homosexauls

and Handicapped" are races. Jews (Middle East)

and Gypsies (India) are no native population of

Europe, but they did come and still come in large numbers to

Europe and Germany as everybody visiting Berlin can see.

October 11, 2006

Vic if you have a problem with the master races of Western

Civilization and their roots or achievements, nobody

force you to be in the West or visit places in the West,

but please leave the Leica here.

October 10, 2006

Vic were do I find find the museum dedicated to the genocide of the indigenious Americans in Washington.

Unfortunately, the legacy lives on.

October 10, 2006

Maybe the lever for seting the aperture is missing or bent on the adapted lens.

Check any T2 adapter for OM to see what im talking about.

October 10, 2006

Madras was rebaptised "Chennai", because Hindu chauvinism cant stand the idea that all mayor Indian cities were founded (or grew to importance) by the British. Same with Bombay/Mumbay. Political extremism manifest themself often in renaming of cities - Chemniz/Karl Marx City; Petersburg/Leningrad.

You might have better luck with a search for: Madras Fuji photo shop

October 6, 2006

>all of them were non operational mock-ups,

dummy-cameras.<

Excellent marketing! Makes it more of a "concept" and much

less a reality. And rammed home the reality of the first

battery-dependent M.

You are aware of the fact that the M8 is not for sale yet?

What did you expect? The first digital camera working without

electricity?

The Leica M8 at the "shooting gallery" were non operational

mock-ups, dummy-cameras, and it doesn´t matter

since one could not take photos with the cameras on display

there, neither with M8, MP nor R9.

If you were interested in Leica and the M8 you would have visited the

Leica booth at the Photokina, were they had plenty of working M8

cameras.

The guy behind the counter told me that the prototype M8 can take over

400 photos with one charged battery in the CIPA test.. His personal

experience was, that he needed 2 batteries per Photokina day.

But a dead polo pony can still make a great viande chevaline

:-)

Without water?

Did you have a point?

There are several possible reasons not to own polo ponies some might be:

1. Not playing polo

2. Living in place without water

3. Not able to afford polo ponies

Do you live in place without water and electricity?

October 6, 2006

Leica had a "shooting

gallery" set up between two halls at Photokina and there were four or

five M8s bolted down for people to fondle. Every single one was dead -

no juice.

No surprise - all of them were non operational mock-ups,

dummy-cameras.

If you had asked the

lackeys they would have told you.

... the

point that this camera is a doorstop without a power supply.

Polo ponies are dead without water suply, I guess thats the reason you

don´t have some either.

October 1, 2006

Leica has a big booth at the Photokina and one could handle a lot of

exotic and expensive gear. The M8 received the most interest of the

visitors and they had many of them (M8 and visitors).

Some observations:

The M8 has low noise, comparable to an M7 but with a different sound,

faster more metallic. <a

href="http://www.dpreview.com/articles/LeicaM8/Samples/Audio/m7-then-m8.mp3">The

comparisson at dpreview.com (MP3, 68 KB) </a> gives a

good impression how it sounds

I happen to be there when an Australian visitor compared vignetting of

the 15mm Voigtländer on Leica M8 and his Epson R1-D.

Comparing the results of the 15mm on the back LCD of the M8 and the

R1-D, the visitor concluded, that the picture taken with the M8 showed

significant less vignetting.

The M8 has an external meter in addition to its internal TTL metering.

It was explained to me that it is used to calculate the amount of

vignetting and approximate aperture (+- 1 stop), for compensation

purposes. With bar coded lenses the M8 will be able to differentiate

between artificial vignetting and natural light fall off.

Hologon doesn´t fit, but the Super-Angulons and the Visoflex

will fit the M8 ;-)

My impression is, the Leica M8 will be a big success.

Leicas new super wide angle Tri-Elmar is a very compact lens. The demo

photos, taken with M8 and Tri-Elmar at 16mm, were tack sharp right into

the corner (in Photoshop at 100% magnification).

The new super wide angle external view finder is huge!

The view thought this viewfinder is excellent!

The new 28mm 2.8 Elmarit is a cute little lens, same solid design, fit

an finish as the new 35mm 2.0 Summicron.

I´ve also visited Zeiss more in this <a

href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00IGiG">message.

October 1, 2006

I was very interested in the Zeiss Ikon Rangfinder at the Photokina,

since no shop in my area sells this camera or the Zeiss lenses for

M-bayonet.

To make it short, the Zeiss Ikon made a very good impression.

Some review at the web tried to create the (IMHO false) impression of

lightweight, "flimsy", build quality, calling them overpriced

Bessa´s.

My impression of weight, finsh, operation of the Zeiss Ikon is that

it´s comparable to the best Japanese mechanical cameras, like

the Nikon FE/FM series.

The finder of the Zeiss Ikon is realy excelent, big and contrasty. Very

easy focusing, no rangefinder patch flare, excelent contrast here to.

Shutter times are displayed on the left side, IMHO the Leica solution

is easier for the eye.

The 0,74 magnification Zeiss Ikon finder is comparable to the 0,72

Leica finder, only that the Zeiss finder gave me the impression of a

more spacious picture.

The ideal focal length for both might be 35mm. The 28mm frames on both

cameras are IMHO to close to the edge for comfortable composing. The

Zeiss Ikon might be a little bit better than the 0,72 Leica in this

regard, but IMHO for 28mm lenses the 0,58 finder in a Leica is best for

composing.

Before, I had the impression that Leica is the gold standard in

rangefinder, no other manufactor could compete with. The Zeiss Ikon

finder is realy hard competion for the M-Leica.

The combined shuttertime, exposure compensation, filmsensitivity wheel

is another point were Zeiss/Cosina found a superior solution (another

one would be the back door for conventional film loading). It is easy

to operate, but has positive response for your fingers with clicks.

Very easy to use exposure compensation in aperture priority mode (also

in combination with exposure lock).

Unlocking the camera back works as described in the manual, but I have

seen better solutions.

The shutter sound and vibrations of the Zeiss Ikon are much better than

the early Bessa cameras made by Cosina, but unfortunatly for

Zeiss/Cosina any M-Leica, inclusive the new M8, has a more mutted

shutter noise.

IMHO (but keep in mind I could only try out for a short time) a much

better camera than any CL, Minolta CLE, Konica Hexar RF (noisy

filmtransport), or Contax G (noisy, awful finder).

The Zeiss lenses for the M-bayonet have realy nice quality finish.

Metal construcction smooth focusing action, precise movement of the

aperture ring in 1/3 stops. Like the Japanese used to build lenses, but

(most) no longer do.

Do they have the same superb fit and finish as current Leica lenses.

Certainly not, neither do they have the ambitous optical properties of

current Leica lenses, nor do they have a Leica price tag.

September 1, 2006

Regardless if you are buying an M6 or not - Keep the OM

<ul>

<li>The OM-4T brings not much

money to pay for the Leica</li>

<li>The OM-4T has a

more sophisticate metering system</li>

<li>The OM-4T is a

much more general purpose camera than the M6</li>

<li> For super wide

angle photography (anything shorter than 28mm) the OM has a better

finder</li>

<li> For tele

photography (anything longer than 50mm) the OM has a better finder (the

90mm and 100mm 2.0 Zuikos are as good as contemporary Leica lenses)</li>

<li>For shallow DOF, wide open

aperture photography, the OM SLR gives much better control of

the placement and composition of sharpness/unsharpness (not surprising)</li>

</ul>

August 31, 2006

Again, not the first time, what a collection of racist hate messages.

Disgusting Leica forum.

August 22, 2006

80 US$ is a bargain.

The 35mm 2.0 Zuiko is the best

looking lens I know. Excellent design. <div></div>

July 27, 2006

Hello Louie

Both light meter use a single AA battery.

Both are of similar size and weight.

The Gossen is newer, with better specs. and has IMHO better ergonomics.

Sekonics L-308

Sensitivity EV: 0 - 19,9

Exposure times: 1/8000 - 60 seconds

Sensitivity Flash: 2.0 - 90

Flash sync: 1/500s - 1s

Measuring angle without dome 40°

Size: 63 x 110 x 21 mm

Weight: 80g

Gossen Luna Digital Pro F (Sixtomat flash)

Sensitivity EV: -2.5 - 18

Exposure times: 1/8000 - 60 minutes

Sensitivity Flash: 1.0 - 90

Flash sync: 1/1000s - 1s

Measuring angle without dome: 25°

Size: 65 x 118 x 19 mm

Weight: 95g

The Gossen has higher sensitivity (good for low light situations),

a larger range of exposure times,

a narrower angle for measurements without dome.

Ergonomics follows Gossen standards and are very good and intuitive.

ISO number is permanently displayed (avoids surprises).

Has a large "analogue" scale of aperture values (excellent for contrast

measurements).

The light sensor is in the front of the device, the shadow of the

photographer doesn´t fall on the sensor, one can read the

display and make a measurement (excellent again for contrast

measurements).

Horizontal keys change modes. Available and chosen modes are shown on

the top of the display. No need to guess, which comes next.

Vertical keys change values like time, aperture, film sensitivity, etc.

The central key makes a measurement.

Small size, flat, fits in a shirt pocket.

IMHO the Gossen is the better light meter.

July 21, 2006

...played with an EOS

5D. Bloody nice camera with sweet ergonomics and so sweetly balanced.

How did you like it´s wind-on lever?

July 12, 2006

Did you see the Danish film "Italian for Beginner"?

July 7, 2006

I shouldn�t post late at night...

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